1. Technical Field
The invention relates to an electronic component and a method of manufacturing an electronic component.
2. Related Art
As entity authentication or a traceability technology of electronic components, such as a semiconductor device, there is a technology in which a naturally occurring pattern is used as authentication information as described in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-242973.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-242973 describes a semiconductor device having a structure in which the semiconductor circuit is sealed with a sealing resin, and a unique mottled pattern is provided on the surface. In addition, as a method of manufacturing such a semiconductor device, the following manufacturing method is described. That is, it is described that two types of tablet (a first tablet having a first hue and a second tablet having a second hue) are alternately accommodated in a pot as a sealing material, and are pushed into the cavity of a split mold; while pushed into the cavity, the melt of the first tablet and the melt of the second tablet are mixed such that a flowing pattern occurs naturally, and flow into the cavity of the split mold; after that, the melts are solidified so that first sealing sections which are composed of the first tablet and have the first hue and second sealing sections which are composed of the second tablet and have the second hue form a mottled pattern on the sealed surface. Since the mottled pattern formed in the above manner is irregular, the mottled pattern is difficult to be forged and unique, and therefore it is possible to identify semiconductor devices respectively.
Meanwhile, it is described that, since a resin material has a high viscosity even when heated and thus melted, the melt of the first tablet and the melt of the second tablet are mixed, but are not homogeneously melted and mixed. In addition, as a method for differing the first hue and the second hue, a method is described in which different contents of carbon black are included in the respective tablets, or different pigments or dyes are mixed into the respective tablets.